Most people find that an established professional community is one of their most critical and often used professional resources. In my last two blog posts I introduced the idea of using a "Private Professional Network" (or PPC for short) within your organization to create a community for your trainers. In this blog, I complete this thread by talking a bit about how to "bootstrap" the community or get it off the ground.
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Part 3 of 3: Establishing an On-Line Trainer Community for Your Maritime Organization
Introduction
In my last two blog posts I introduced the idea of using a "Private Professional Network" (or PPC for short) within your organization to create a community for your trainers. Over the last year or so I have been involved in helping create one for British Columbia Ferry Services Inc - one of the largest ferry systems in the world.
In my first blog in this series I introduced the idea of a PPC and spoke about some of its benefits. In the second blog, I talked about selecting the PPC software and setting up your community. In this blog, I complete this thread by talking a bit about how to "bootstrap" the community or get it off the ground. Most people find that an established professional community is one of their most critical and often used professional resources. It is their connection to other members in their profession (in this case, other marine trainers in the company) who share the same goals and challenges. It is a place for mentorship and support; a place to exchange ideas, advice and best practices. However, as valuable as these communities often turn out to be, there is a bit of nurturing required at the outset. After all, the value of the community is the people there, the information they share, and the support they provide. But until the people are there and information starts to flow, there is little value. This article is about building the value to engage the members. If you take the (little bit of) time required to do this, you (and others) will thank yourself in the long run. If you don't do this, there is a very real chance that your community will never establish a "life".
If you've read and recall the previous two blog posts - parts 1 and 2, you can skip the remainder of this introduction, which is just a reminder of what a PPC is, and what its benefits are. In that case, feel free to skip ahead to "Bootstrapping Your Community". Otherwise, read on.
As a quick reminder, a PPC is an online site for communication and information exchange that only certain people have access to. Here, we are speaking about a community set up by your company that only company trainers and training administrators are able to access. The functionality of a PPC is similar to sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn, but includes additional features geared toward its primary focus which is professional communication, the sharing of ideas and the mentorship of new trainers. PPCs support user profiles, groups and discussion areas. They also should support a library area for the organization and sharing of documents.
The benefits of a PPC accrue to both your trainers and your organization as a whole. They include:
- The ability to share best practices organization-wide which otherwise would benefit only a small portion of your organization.
- Standardization of teaching and operational practices within your organization.
- Mentorship for new trainers who are otherwise more or less "alone".
- The codification and preservation of valuable corporate knowledge which would otherwise be lost.
- The ability to target communication to precisely those who need to know, making the communication more effective and more likely to be read.
- Trainer empowerment - giving your trainers a hand in, and a stake in the development of the training process and standards in your organization.
As I mentioned above, previous posts have spoken about the benefits of a PPC and how to create and set up your PPC. Once the members are registered, the groups are created and the library is set up, it is time to begin engaging your trainers in order to ensure the establishment of a vibrant, supportive community.
"Bootstrapping" your community
There is a small chance that if you create your community, register your trainers (or have them register themselves) and then set up the groups, etc, your community will just take off by itself. However, experience has shown that to be the exception, not the norm. More typically, before the community can "run" on its own, it requires a little hand-holding and guidance to teach it to crawl and then walk. How do we do that?
The overall answer to that question is that we need to give members a reason to visit the community even before they become their own reason for visiting, at which time you can largely step aside. There are many ways we can accomplish this.
Images and descriptions
One of the most surprisingly effective techniques to foster a sense of online community is requiring your trainers to:
- Place an image in their profile. This can be an image of themselves, but it need not be. It simply needs to be an image that somehow represents them, an interest of theirs, or their professional life.
- Place a description of themselves in their profile. This description should speak to which vessels they serve and train on, some of their past experiences, and their professional goals.
- Introduce themselves in the groups they are in. This is especially important if the trainers are not all first-hand acquaintances, as is the case in many maritime organizations due to their size and physical distribution.
These three things, taken together, "personalize" each member in the eyes of the community. They give each member a face and depth. They give other members a reason to connect with that member and provide comfort that there is an actual person on the other end of the network cable. If this is not done, then there is no "person" there - only names. Thus there is no reason to connect, ask questions, or share information.
Make the Community "The" Source of Necessary Information
As a training executive, there is a lot of information you provide to your trainers on a regular basis. Some of this information is relatively "static", including policies, schedules, etc - anything that your trainers need to refer to regularly in doing their work. Other information is quite dynamic such as regular notices, operational changes, training assignments, etc. In both cases, use the community library and discussion areas to house and distribute this information. If the community satisfies all your information distribution needs in this regard, do not distribute the information in any other venue. This has the dual benefit of:
- Providing a centrally accessible location where all information can be organized and accessed. In addition, placing the information in a PPC gives the information "life". PPCs support interaction around and concerning information. Questions about the information can be asked, discussions can be held with the community as a whole, and clarification, refinement and continuous improvement will be the natural result. There is no similarly simple, natural way to interact around information distributed in other forms such as paper or e-mail. In that case, the best you could hope for is that a question may be e-mailed to you or asked during a chance meeting with a colleague. Information distributed this way has no “life” and is much less likely to benefit from the combined wisdom and experience of the community. Once you experience the ability of a PPC to foster communication and collaboration based on information, I suspect you will agree that the difference is striking.
- Giving your trainers their first reason to come to the community. They need the information, and the community needs people to visit it. If they must come to the community to get their necessary information, they will do so, and will begin interacting around that information naturally.
Make the PPC a Primary Means of Communication
Encourage your trainers to use the community as their primary source of communication (as appropriate). For example, if they have a question about training, have them ask it in the trainer group of the community for all to see. Assure them that questions asked this way will be answered.
When I first began running communities in this fashion, my goal was to save time. If one of my community members had a question, there was no doubt that the same question would be on the minds of other community members. This way, I could answer the question one time, not many.
It turned out that while this indeed did prove to be a benefit, I was surprised by an even greater benefit. What I found was that when one member asked a question, quite often some other member would answer it before I could. Then another member would chime in, giving an alternative view. Discussions would bloom, people would connect, information and best practices would be shared, and everyone would benefit and learn, including me. People were acting as a community, not as a number of independent individuals left on their own to reinvent knowledge and ideas that others had already mastered. This was a huge "A Ha!!" moment for me. Perhaps in retrospect I should have anticipated this, but I did not.
Seed Conversations
Further to the point on communication just discussed, it may be very useful if you "seed conversations" by asking questions of the community. You will not need to do this once the community develops its own critical mass of interactivity, but it can be quite helpful at the beginning.
Do not be afraid to ask questions of your trainers ("How many of you are …"), ask their opinions ("How many of you believe …"), or encourage them to share their own ideas ("Who among you have found a great way to …"). You get the idea.
Find "Leaders"
As community interactivity develops, natural leaders will emerge. Until then, it may help if you personally identify some experienced trainers who can act as group leaders. They can be assigned to contribute library information, ensure everyone's profile image and description are present, answer questions and seed discussions in the early stages of the community before it runs on its own steam. Give them good tips on how to foster community and ensure they regularly (every day or two) visit and interact in the community.
Conclusion
If the above sounds like a lot of work, have no fear. First, it is actually not a lot of work. Secondly, it is only temporary. You will be able to step back and watch the community take on an active life of its own once you have finished seeding and watering it. At that point, my belief is that you will wonder how you ever managed to get along without the connection that your trainers now have to one another, without the support they offer one another, and without the seamless and targeted communication offered by your PPC.
This seeding that you do is so critical to getting the community off the ground, I suggest that you not start the community until you are sure you will be able to devote the bit of time required to seed it. If you do not, then there is a good chance the community never will get off the ground. The site will sit there, unused, as a painful reminder of a failed attempt at innovation. You will not only have missed an excellent opportunity, but you will also have made it more difficult to try again when you do have the time. My hope is that this last piece of advice does not scare you away, but instead only prepares you with the information you need to succeed. The benefits are huge. Go for it.
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Let me write about your story so we can all learn from it! Is your organization leading the way in job and familiarization training? I’d like to write about it. Or, do you have an example of a poor familiarization experience or practice that we can all take lessons from? I would like to write about that too (without naming you or your company, in this case). Contact me by email at Murray@MarineLS.com. You have a familiarization tale to tell. You can benefit everyone by sharing it.
About The Author:
Murray Goldberg is the founder and President of Marine Learning Systems (www.marinels.com), the creator of MarineLMS - the first learning management system specifically for maritime industry training. Murray began research in eLearning in 1995 as a faculty member of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. He went on to create WebCT, the world’s first commercially successful LMS for higher education; serving 14 million student in 80 countries. Now, in Marine Learning systems, Murray is hoping to play a part in advancing the art and science of learning in the maritime industry.
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